Finally, the government has woken up to the academic pressure, exam stress, and rising student suicides among students. A parliamentary committee has decided to review the proliferation of coaching centres to support students in competitive examinations and the social issues arising from it. Earlier this year, the Union Ministry of Education had set up a nine-member panel to examine issues relating to coaching and the emergence of dummy schools, besides the effectiveness and fairness of entrance examinations. The panel is studying the effectiveness and fairness of competitive entrance examinations in the context of the school education system and their influence on the growth of the coaching industry. According to NCRB data, India recorded 1,70,924 reported suicide cases in 2022, of which 7.6% comprised students. The number of suicides among students in the last two decades has increased from 5,425 in 2001 to 13,044 in 2022. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court issued 15 guidelines to address the rising incidents of suicide, safety concerns, and mental health issues among students. A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta directed all educational institutions to implement a uniform mental health policy, drawing from the UMMEED Draft Guidelines, the MANODARPAN initiative, and the National Suicide Prevention Strategy. The court said this policy must be reviewed annually and made publicly accessible on institutional websites and notice boards. Institutions with 100 or more enrolled students must appoint at least one qualified counsellor, psychologist, or social worker with demonstrable training in child and adolescent mental health. Orders, guidelines, and counsellors look fancy on paper, but in reality, the students are suffering in silence. Parents are equally blamed for this rat race. The amount of pressure mounted on students to crack entrance exam is unbearable. Parents want to see their kids as doctors, engineers, and civil servants. Some parents sell their assets to pay for their kids coaching. When students fail, they either slip into depression or end their lives. Coaching centers have become a money-making machine. Every locality has a coaching center and each one of them sell big dreams to students. Parents need to be sensitive. Unnecessary pressure will only lead to catastrophe. Medicine and engineering are not the end of the world. Let the student take the call of his or career. Let him or her do what he or she is good at. The government too needs to crack whip on coaching centers that survive on misery. Let sanity prevail!
Mushrooming coaching centres
